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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   33999 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 10, 2025

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Now that Trump has ignored the order of a judge to unfreeze the funds he is withholding comes the first constitutional crisis. This is where checks and balances should kick in. If he brazenly defies the courts then Congress can take action against him by impeachment and removal. Hopefully.

  • -24

As a notable Yale law grad recently explained:

If a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal.

If a judge tried to command the attorney general in how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal.

Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power.

Maybe the real Constitutional crisis is some random judge deciding that the President's powers as described in Article 2 are actually reserved for that particular judge and they personally shall decide how and if the President may exercise them.

That is literally what judges do though. They say "this particular military operation, or this particular use of prosecutorial discretion, is illegal". That's their only job in the US legal system. I don't really see how this law grad you speak of can say that a judge isn't allowed to do such things. Judges don't have unlimited power to control the executive, but they do have some power to do so.

It is pretty unprecedented for a district judge to order such a sweeping injunction that affects a core executive duty / power. All the more so when this is certainly a political question (ie Trump isn’t saying he won’t ever spend money Congress appropriated; he is saying first he needs to understand what it is being spent on because what it is being spent on may not be in line with the congressional grant and/or the grant may be impossible.

Also I don’t think judges have ever said “this particular military operation, or this particular use of prosecutorial discretion, is illegal.” Like can you find one case?

United States v. Calley, 1971.

This appears to be a court martial after the fact within the military courts.

I’m asking for a situation consistent with this hypo where a district court placed an injunction on the executive from pursuing a particular battle etc.

Youngstown Sheet & Tube v. Sawyer - not a conventional military operation, but the courts explicitly declared the President's actions in exercising his executive authority in wartime illegal.

The steel seizure cases are different. Again SCOTUS decision; was there a TRO?

Also the whole question about the steel seizure cases was whether this was a core power or a secondary power.

The initial order against the federal government began in the district courts.

Also the whole question about the steel seizure cases was whether this was a core power or a secondary power.

So? What was under discussion was whether district courts had 'personally decided how' the President should exercise their powers. In this case they did just that.

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